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Stockton, CA Tested Universal Basic Income. Here’s How Recipients Spent It

28 points by MontagFTB 7y ago

lolinder 7y ago
>Plus, he said previous studies have shown people don’t spend the money on frivolous things. Serious question that I've had for a while: how can anyone actually say this about money, in any domain? It seems like because money is fungible, it would be useless to try to say where a particular $500 went unless it was the only money the participants spent that month. How does research like this account for that?
- Arnt 7y ago
  You withdrew some money from an ATM last night, right? Thinking it was from your salary? Actually that was drug money. The bank isn't useless, because it keeps track of how much money it receives and hands out, and from whom. So even if you got a note that has been in some drug smuggler's hands, the bank isn't useless. The researchers do much the same, except with less precision. The bank has full insight into who deposits, transfers and withdraws, the researchers only partial insight into the income and spending of the research subjects. But they can estimate how good their insight is and take steps to improve it. Their results are as precise as their insight is complete. Their results won't be as precise as your bank statement, but they can be precise enough to be useful. After all, the researches can set the terms their experiment so as to get enough data.
RandomBacon 7y ago
Discussion posted around the same time as this thread with 70 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21153063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21153063
codeddesign 7y ago
From the data, 12%+ either didn’t want to work or were working part time. I’m all for helping people in need, but not when I have to spend my hard earned money on someone that doesn’t want to earn their way. Serious Question: is there a reason why this percentage isn’t given a public service job in return for this “basic income”? My first though is to let them help their community and in return they are assisted financially rather than just giving out free money.
- cthalupa 7y ago
  Then it would be a jobs program and not universal basic income. People are interested in UBI for as variety of reasons, including possible futures where there are simply not jobs for the majority of humans due to automation, AI, and robotics.
  - nradov 7y ago
    Perhaps that might happen in hundreds of years but in our lifetimes there won't be robots that can do trail maintenance in rugged terrain, or babysit small children, or paint an original mural on a public wall. So I'll never support wasting tax money on UBI. Bring on a public jobs program, like those we had during the Great Depression.
    - anon9001 7y ago
      Why won't we have those things in our lifetimes? None of those seem like insurmountable problems even given today's technology.
    - AareyBaba 7y ago
      A public jobs/infrastructure program would work something like this: various states would lobby for money to spend in their states, $billions in large contracts would be awarded to politically connected corporations that would bill at $100/hr keep a large percentage and subcontract the work at $40/hr to smaller businesses that in turn would keep a percentage and hire people to do the work for $15/hr. That is trickle down economics. If instead you distributed the $billions to every citizen in the country, the vast majority of the money would be spent in local economies on things like day care, car or home repair, taking your kids in for dental cleaning. That is a trickle up economy. I too reasoned that UBI was liberal social nonsense. But I've been following Andrew Yang's presidential campaign and his justifications make sense from a capitalist point of view. As Yang points out - this is capitalism that doesn't start at zero. It has benefits. Check out his long interviews on Youtube. The Joe Rogan interview is a good place to start https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsEzmFamZ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsEzmFamZ8. If you don't have the time check out his talk with the AARP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXQ3DEFI1eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXQ3DEFI1eg or the AFL-CIO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlt3nyZdnmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlt3nyZdnmI
maerF0x0 7y ago
> But 40% of the money has been withdrawn as cash, making it harder for researchers to know how it was used. So 40% of it could have been spent on vices and they're just "Trusting" them and then reporting it as evidence?

28 points by MontagFTB 7y ago

>Plus, he said previous studies have shown people don’t spend the money on frivolous things. Serious question that I've had for a while: how can anyone actually say this about money, in any domain? It seems like because money is fungible, it would be useless to try to say where a particular $500 went unless it was the only money the participants spent that month. How does research like this account for that?

Arnt 7y ago
You withdrew some money from an ATM last night, right? Thinking it was from your salary? Actually that was drug money. The bank isn't useless, because it keeps track of how much money it receives and hands out, and from whom. So even if you got a note that has been in some drug smuggler's hands, the bank isn't useless. The researchers do much the same, except with less precision. The bank has full insight into who deposits, transfers and withdraws, the researchers only partial insight into the income and spending of the research subjects. But they can estimate how good their insight is and take steps to improve it. Their results are as precise as their insight is complete. Their results won't be as precise as your bank statement, but they can be precise enough to be useful. After all, the researches can set the terms their experiment so as to get enough data.

RandomBacon 7y ago

Discussion posted around the same time as this thread with 70 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21153063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21153063

codeddesign 7y ago

From the data, 12%+ either didn’t want to work or were working part time. I’m all for helping people in need, but not when I have to spend my hard earned money on someone that doesn’t want to earn their way. Serious Question: is there a reason why this percentage isn’t given a public service job in return for this “basic income”? My first though is to let them help their community and in return they are assisted financially rather than just giving out free money.

cthalupa 7y ago
Then it would be a jobs program and not universal basic income. People are interested in UBI for as variety of reasons, including possible futures where there are simply not jobs for the majority of humans due to automation, AI, and robotics.
- nradov 7y ago
  Perhaps that might happen in hundreds of years but in our lifetimes there won't be robots that can do trail maintenance in rugged terrain, or babysit small children, or paint an original mural on a public wall. So I'll never support wasting tax money on UBI. Bring on a public jobs program, like those we had during the Great Depression.
  - anon9001 7y ago
    Why won't we have those things in our lifetimes? None of those seem like insurmountable problems even given today's technology.
  - AareyBaba 7y ago
    A public jobs/infrastructure program would work something like this: various states would lobby for money to spend in their states, $billions in large contracts would be awarded to politically connected corporations that would bill at $100/hr keep a large percentage and subcontract the work at $40/hr to smaller businesses that in turn would keep a percentage and hire people to do the work for $15/hr. That is trickle down economics. If instead you distributed the $billions to every citizen in the country, the vast majority of the money would be spent in local economies on things like day care, car or home repair, taking your kids in for dental cleaning. That is a trickle up economy. I too reasoned that UBI was liberal social nonsense. But I've been following Andrew Yang's presidential campaign and his justifications make sense from a capitalist point of view. As Yang points out - this is capitalism that doesn't start at zero. It has benefits. Check out his long interviews on Youtube. The Joe Rogan interview is a good place to start https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsEzmFamZ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsEzmFamZ8. If you don't have the time check out his talk with the AARP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXQ3DEFI1eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXQ3DEFI1eg or the AFL-CIO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlt3nyZdnmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlt3nyZdnmI

maerF0x0 7y ago

> But 40% of the money has been withdrawn as cash, making it harder for researchers to know how it was used. So 40% of it could have been spent on vices and they're just "Trusting" them and then reporting it as evidence?